I really hope this doesn't happen
by Selective scifi junkie
Summary: This fic begins to show the worst outcome I dare imagine in Civil War: both sides certain right is on their side, both sides powerful and determined that they won't back down. In war, not everybody makes it out alive.
1. Chapter 1

I really hope this doesn't happen

 **Summary: This was the worst I could imagine just after I saw Ultron and I was thinking about Civil War.**

 **Set: During Civil War**

 **Spoilers: Age of Ultron, very vague spoilers for others.**

 **Rating: I'm listing it as a T because there's no sexual content and there's not actually an awful lot of violence, but what there is very is bloody.**

* * *

Natasha Romanoff glanced around the unlit alley to makes sure she was alone, then started to climb, one handed. She wasn't going far, only the second floor, and the age of this building meant lots of toeholds in the brickwork. Those and the drainpipe were enough for her. Fifteen feet of the ground, she let go of the drainpipe and pushed her self outwards towards a small balcony. She hissed as her hand caught the metal rail, all her weight behind it. She tested her grip, then jumped her legs over. One made it on to the ledge, then all she had to do was climb over the railings and knock. On the other side of the window, Wanda Maximoff jumped and looked round. She frowned as she looked at Natasha. Natasha knocked again.

"Wouldn't that be fraternising with the enemy?" Maximoff said through the glass. Natasha held up her non-climbing hand. In it, she held a bottle of Tovaritch vodka. She'd done her research. She knew what Maximoff liked to drink. Maximoff raised her eyebrows and opened the window. Natasha handed the bottle over, then climbed through herself. "What do you want?" Maximoff asked cautiously. Natasha sighed.

"Can't I just want to sit with you?" She answered in Russian. " I don't want to forget what it feels like to be your friend before this tears it all apart."

"Is it going to?" Maximoff asked, in English. "Are Stark's cronies planning something we should be worried about?"

"Not specifically, it's just… Sooner or later someone is going to catch sight of Barnes again. When that happens, the feds will try to arrest him, Rogers will try to protect him from the feds - he won't be able to help himself - we'll have to send cavalry in to deal with Rogers, he'll call you all in to help him…" She tailed off. "Nobody wants this." She continued, back in Russian, the better to remind Maximoff how alike they were. "Nobody wants it to come down to a fight like that, but nobody's backing down." Maximoff turned the bottle in her hands.

"Already open." She remarked, in Russian. Natasha shrugged and smiled.

"Had to be sure it was the genuine article, didn't I?"

"So that's what you came for? To drink with me before we try to kill each other?"

"Come on, we both know how it would end if the two of us got in to a real fight. You have power I can't overcome. Vision's the only one on our side who's really a threat to you."

"You unarmed?"

"Wanda, come on. I came in here to have a drink with you. If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it with a sniper rifle."

"Why a sniper rifle?"

"I'm assuming your power has a maximum range, and also that way I wouldn't have to look you in the eye. I don't want to kill you." Which was true.

"But when we battle…"

"Our side wants to hold off lethal force if we possibly can." Maximoff looked down.

"So do we. Barton is determined that we subdue you in particular rather than killing." That sounded like Clint. He'd refused to kill her when she'd been KGB, he wouldn't do it now. Maximoff turned her back and went to fetch a pair of shot glasses. She might actually manage to do this. She'd thought it was a suicide mission. She was trying very hard not to think about it, to keep herself in the present, but the words of her briefing still rang in the back of her head.

"Maximoff is our biggest problem. Without her, The Captain's band of troublemakers is hopelessly outmatched, and they'll know it. The Captain has given surrender once in the past, he won't choose to fight to the death, not when he's got four others following him. He'll choose to preserve their lives and his own if he knows he can't win. Maximoff gives him false hope, so he'll fight, so he and all of his band will probably have to be killed off individually. And during the fight, the life of every fighter we field is also at risk. I'm sure you understand the principle of this; by eliminating one, we prevent many from dying in battle. We need you to eliminate Maximoff." She hadn't wanted to do it. She'd refused at first, but forcing Maximoff to surrender in battle, even with Vision, would be difficult and dangerous. A lot of people could die trying. There was no way for her to survive this, by killing her before the fighting really started, they could prevent a lot of deaths, probably including some civilians, in the crossfire.

Maximoff thumped a shot glass down on the table in front of Natasha.

"How much can you hold?" She asked, still in Russian.

"Much more than you, little one." Natasha replied, pouring for the both of them. Maximoff picked up her glass and waited for Natasha. They tapped their glasses together and downed the liquor. Sweet for vodka, then the vapour of nuts remained.

"No burn." Maximoff remarked, smiling. "I like this stuff." Natasha smiled back at her.

"It's a useful one for a spy. Doesn't have the burn, so it hits harder than anybody who isn't Russian could realise. If you want to get an American drunk, this is the way to do it."

"I bet I can think of one American who could hold it."

Natasha laughed. "Nobody can get him drunk. It isn't possible." Maximoff poured the second round, Natasha the third almost immediately afterwards.

"Why did you side with Stark?" Maximoff asked, as she put her glass down again.

"What?" Natasha asked.

"Why Stark?"

Natasha sighed. "Power corrupts. That's just the way humans are. That's what democracy is supposed to limit. We are powerful, some of us more than others. If we don't submit ourselves to authority, we will become the very thing we seek to destroy."

"I guess I was just surprised. You spent so much of your life living on a chain, then… I was HYDRA's pet freak for years. I've had six months feeling the wind, smelling the air, I'm not going back to living in a box. I like being free."

"Nobody's free. Not really. Everyone is a servant to someone or something, just not everybody knows it. But if I've learned one thing, it matters who your master is. If you choose well, it's better than being 'free'." And for a moment, Natasha wondered if she might get Maximoff to back down, if her mission might not be necessary, then Maximoff shook her head, pouring another round.

"There's too much KGB in you. You don't even want to be your own woman. Anyway, I could never trust Stark. I've seen in his head, remember?"

"You go in to anybody's head, you'll find things that are ugly."

"Can we not talk about this stuff tonight?" Maximoff asked, pushing a full shot glass to Natasha. They downed the shots.

"OK, what movies has Barton given you to watch?" Natasha said.

"How did you know he'd-"

"He say you need catching up with American culture?" Maximoff looked at her in amazement. "You're not the first ex-Soviet he's taken under his wing. He had a list of things he said I needed to watch. Where did he start you off?" Maximoff smiled.

"All seven Star Wars, starting with four."

They drank steadily, working their way through the bottle. Natasha let her posture slide, smiled too easily, laughed too long and too loudly. Maximoff was doing the same. The only difference was that Natasha was faking it. The five tablespoons of oil and bowl of porridge sitting in Natasha's stomach, delaying the inevitable, but Maximoff hadn't eaten yet tonight. A bag of potatoes sat by the sink with a peeler, one potato out, one strip of skin peeled off it; she'd just started preparing dinner. She was wide open to the alcohol, and to the drug it was laced with. They'd told Natasha it would blunt Maximoff's power. Nobody knew how effectively, or if Maximoff would notice, but Natasha was still thought to be their best hope of neutralising her quietly.

When Maximoff started to look drunk, Natasha reached out her hand as though to pour another shot and knocked the half-empty bottle on to the floor. It shattered. Natasha cursed.

"I'm sorry, what a waste." Maximoff just giggled.

"It's OK, I'm drunk enough already, so are you." Natasha joined in the giggling. "I'll get the brush." Maximoff said. Natasha crouched to pick up some of the bigger bits of glass, forbidding herself to think, trying them in her hands. Maximoff came back with the dustpan. As she dropped to a crouch, Natasha stood up. Two movements. Left hand catches the chin, just gently, a guide, not a restraint. Right hand takes the blade, the shard of glass, through the major vessels, nice and high, avoid the voicebox.

Hot blood sprayed over both her hands. Maximoff gasped and pulled away. Natasha dropped the piece of glass. Maximoff's hands came up, as though to try to staunch the bleeding. She was already ashen. Natasha backed away, blood dripping from her hands. It was done. There had to be two pints of blood on the floor already, it had been seconds. Natasha turned away from the woman with blood pouring out of her neck and ran. She heard Maximoff try to cry out, then fall to the floor as she reached the window. Her hands were slippery, it wasn't far to the ground.

Down a back alley, Natasha stopped and fell to her knees. She had to be sick, she'd taken a lot of alcohol on board very quickly. Before she'd even raised a hand towards her mouth, she felt herself gag. She went on until her stomach was empty. She was shaking. Her mouth was full of acid, it had gone up her nose too. She spluttered and spat, then gasped and heaved again. There was nothing left. She leaned against a bin. Nobody would think anything of her, just another drunk; she was safe enough here. They'd know. Somebody walking right up to the Scarlet Witch and cutting her throat in her own home with a shard of a vodka bottle, Clint would only have to look at the scene to know it was her. Maximoff had trusted her. What she'd found in Natasha's head had looked familiar to her. That and a common language, a way of talking in front of the other Avengers that nobody else understood, had encouraged the younger woman to trust. Natasha would have trusted her; if Maximoff had turned up unannounced one evening with a bottle, Natasha would have sat and drank with her. She'd had no choice. Seeing this, surely Rogers had to realise he couldn't win, that if he, Wilson, Barnes, Lang and Clint wanted to survive, they had to surrender. Rogers might be tempted to stand with Barnes and fight to the death, but he'd send the others away if he knew it was suicide. He wouldn't let Clint die beside him if it wouldn't do any good. By taking Maximoff's life, she might have saved theirs. Maximoff was just a kid, she didn't know what she'd been getting herself in to. But sometimes an innocent's life was a price that had to be paid.

 **If there is interest, there could be two or three more chapters of this.**


	2. Chapter 2

The phone rang in Rogers's pocket, the one that only Bucky, Wilson, Barton, Maximoff and Lang had a number for. He picked it up.

"Yeah?"

"Rogers, it's me." Barton's voice.

"What's up?" There was a moment's silence. When Barton did speak, his voice was tight.

"I'm at Maximoff's." There was another long silence. "She's dead."

"What? How?" Rogers sunk in to a chair. He'd seen her yesterday. She'd been fine.

"Throat cut. Shard of a bottle. She wouldn't have suffered much." She'd been murdered. Someone had murdered her, she was only a girl.

"Barton,"

"There's not much sign of a struggle, no other wounds, the blood's in one pool. This is good work. She can't have had any warning, she reads – read minds."

"Barton, who-"

"I don't know. I have a guess. I hope I'm wrong." Neither of them spoke for a moment. "This wasn't just some robbery gone wrong, nothing's been taken. Her phone is lying on the table clear as day."

"They're going to pick us off." Rogers said. "They're going to take us out, one by one, where we can't protect each other."

"We can't wait any longer. They just started the fight."

Rogers sighed. "I guess there's no chance it wasn't the other side."

"She was our only answer to Vision, we find her face down on the floor in her home, a piece of a vodka bottle through her neck…" Barton stopped talking. "There aren't many people who would have the skill or the guts to pull off a hit like that. Not on her." They couldn't dwell on this. There would come a time to mourn Wanda, but that time wasn't now. They had to make sure nobody else got killed. They had to move forward.

"Right, get out of there and call the cops. Make something up, just get them to come over. If they can find out who did this-"

"They won't."

"Let them try. While you're doing that I'll call Lang and Wilson and get them to get under cover. Check in every six hours. Keep yourself safe."

"Same to you." Barton hung up.

Rogers leant forward and dropped his elbows on to his knees. Maximoff was dead. Killed in cold blood. She was only a girl. If it had been a stranger, she'd have checked, made ways to defend herself. It had to have been somebody she knew, somebody she trusted. Someone she trusted had walked right up to her and shoved a broken bottle through her throat. Rogers was breathing hard, he felt almost sick. This should not have happened. He shouldn't have let this happen. She'd been under his command, this was his fault. He should have known they were vulnerable if they were apart. It shouldn't have taken somebody dying for him to realise that.

They were on to lethal force. He didn't like the idea of killing Stark, or any of them, but if it was getting to the point of kill or be killed, he might have no choice. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. He'd hoped against all hope, but that seemed to be gone. They had to gather their own and make their stand.

Rogers looked up. The other man he'd lost stood silently in the corner of the room, staring sadly at him, arms folded, the metal one glinting in the sunlight.

"Come on." Rogers said to Bucky. "We can't stay here."


	3. Chapter 3

**I really hope this doesn't happen**

Romanoff shouldered the door and vaulted the bannister, landing on the floor below. He had to be close to here, she should go more carefully or he'd get the drop on her. She wasn't tough enough to trade blows in a sustained fight with Rogers or Barnes, or risk stray hits from Stark or Vision, so she was sniper-hunting. Barnes was up close with Rogers, even though he was probably the best shot with a Dragunov she'd ever seen, Rogers's side only had one sniper they were using, and she ought to be able to talk him down.

She went more carefully now, looking through doors before she opened them, when she found him, he was so still she didn't see him at first glance. He was a good sniper. She shouldered the door.

"Clint." He was standing by an open window, bow drawn. "Drop it." He loosed the arrow. Over comms, Stark cursed.

"Or what?" He picked up another arrow, not even looking at her.

"I'm pointing a gun at you."

"I know." He drew his bow again.

"You think I won't hurt you? You're shooting at Stark."

"Actually, this one's aimed at the Vision."

"Clint, you can't kill Vision, you know you can't win this."

"I'm not going for kill shots, not yet anyway, but you? Right now, I'd believe you capable of just about anything." He loosed the arrow and looked at her. They knew. He knew. He knew about… "I thought you'd changed Tasha." He drew another arrow. There was an awful coldness to his voice. "I really did."

"Clint-"

"I thought I knew you." He drew the bow, looking back at the fight below. "I trusted you. I thought you had my back, so many times. I slept next to you with nothing in my hand. Hell, we made most of SHIELD believe we were sleeping together. I took you in to my house, my children run to you smiling. My wife loves you like a sister." He let the arrow fly. T'Challa cried out in to comms, pain or shock she couldn't tell. "And now you're standing there pointing a gun at me." And she was.

"Clint-"

"I found her. Did you know that?" Natasha felt her throat tighten. She hadn't known. She'd expected it to be Rogers, she'd imagined him calling out, turning Maximoff over, then closing her eyes, giving her as much dignity as he could. Clint wouldn't have had to touch her to know. He didn't rush in the way Rogers did, he'd have run a perimeter, looking for forced entry points, prints, tracks… "What? Did you think we wouldn't know?"

"No." She'd been sure Clint would work it out as soon as he laid eyes on Maximoff's body. Her throat tightened further. Clint drew and sighted again.

"She liked you." He fired. "I guess that was natural enough, a pair of ex-Soviet block lab rats, Russian speakers, both of you had to face up to some pretty awful stuff you'd done. But I guess until now all three of us could say 'that wasn't me, that was someone else' and it be half way true." He turned away from the window and faced her. "How do you tell yourself it was OK?" She had no answer. "How do you convince yourself it was right to walk right up to a girl of twenty-six and shove a piece of glass through her neck?"

She had no answer.

"You can't win this, Clint." He laughed. That bitter, cold laugh she usually heard when he was being interrogated.

"Sure as hell can't now. We can't control Vision for ever."

"Then why are you still fighting? It's not going to be Guantanamo for you, it'll be a slapped wrist and six months probation."

"Then what?" She looked at him frowning. He turned fully to face her. "You really haven't thought this through, have you?"

"You come back to work."

He gave that cold, barking laugh again.

"I go on the register. My details go on the register with yours and everyone else's. You have a lot of enemies Tasha. So do I. I've been exploiting a loophole with SHIELD. I can't bank on that any more."

"Clint-"

"You know what happens to agents' families. The Ivanses, the MacLures, the Archers… It always ends the same way."

"No it doesn't. Not always."

He laughed again.

"Near enough. Agents make enemies, if agents have families, enemies make dead children, or tortured children or blinded wives or whatever. Might not happen this month, might not happen this year, but it will happen."

"Clint, we will do whatever we need to do to keep them safe. That's always been the way."

He notched an arrow. "Whatever it takes?"

"Whatever." She might regret that, but if it got him to surrender it ought to be worth it. He smiled, but it was more like a grimace.

"Then shoot me."

"What?"

"No agent, no agent's family to hunt. No agent to be registered, they stay hidden."

"Clint," This hadn't been what she'd expected. She'd expected to remind him why he couldn't go on the run, that he'd lose all contact with his wife and children unless he surrendered. Now this…

"Come on Tasha. You're a good shot, I won't even feel it. I'll turn around and give you the back of my head if you prefer."

"Clint, I am not going to kill you. I am going to bring you in, you get a slap on the wrist, you go free, you go home. We kept them hidden this long." He shook his head. One of Stark's rockets exploded below.

"The register changes things, you know it does. If I'm on there, they die. I'm not walking away from this Tasha. We win the fight and stay off the register or I die here."

"Clint, you are not going to win this."

"Then I die here."

"There's always another way," she said. "Always, you taught me that, that when you work for the good guys, you can always ask for help, for exemptions..."

"Only when the good guys have a face. This is the UN. Too big to care about one woman and three kids somewhere in the Midwest. I'm not coming in. You shoot me or I put you down and march right in to the middle down there, see how long it takes Vision or Stark to do me in."

"I'm not killing you."

"You shoot me, I'll be dead before I hit the floor. Stark's repulsors, depending on where he hits me, might take me twenty minutes to die. Not going to be a good twenty minutes." He started to bring his bow up. "I'm going to count to five, when I get to five, I'm going to shoot you. I'm not going to say whether I'll shoot to kill, maybe Maximoff's ghost would like it if I did. You either let me, or you shoot me first, but don't you dare leave me bleeding. One." He drew the bow back to full draw. There was no cover in reach, if she tried to run he'd shoot her. "Two." She could not kill him. "Three." There was another way. There was always another way. "Four."

She shot him. Midway between hip and knee. The leg buckled and the arrow buried itself in the carpet a foot in front of her. Clint bellowed in pain.

"No you don't!" He went to draw another arrow, he was down on one knee as though he couldn't get up. Natasha bolted. She had maybe two seconds. "You coward!" He was gasping in pain. Something hit her hard across the side. Pain burned in its wake, suddenly her whole right side hurt to move. He'd shot her, flesh wound, not through her ribs, he could have killed her. He'd chosen not to. "Finish what you start!" She dropped to her hands and knees behind a cubicle wall. It wouldn't stop an arrow, but if he couldn't see her, he probably wouldn't shoot.

"I'm not killing you. Come in. We will find a way to make this work."

BANG

The world shook, everything went white, her ears were ringing, the floor moved. Natasha grabbed for anything she could, the cubicle wall fell away in her hand, she was going to fall. Her other hand caught something, she was hanging by it. Where had the floor gone? She was hanging by one hand over what looked like a bomb site. She might have cried out, she couldn't hear herself. Whatever she was holding was giving way, she was going to fall. Where was Clint?

Hands under her, metal taking her weight and moving her. Red and gold in the corner of her eye. Stark. Her hearing started to come back.

"I'm so sorry, Romanoff. I'm so sorry. You're OK, I'm taking you to the medics, I was trying to flush them, the Falcon knocked my aim. I'm so sorry."

"Clint." Her throat was full of dust. "Where's Clint? He was near me." She saw him turn his head back.

"Let me get you to the medics. I'll go back for him."

'

Minutes later, a red and gold armoured figure braved the Winter Soldier's fire to bend over something that was oozing red on to the broken, dusty ground, something that might once have been an archer. He didn't try to move the figure, it was too late for that. He just cursed, slammed his faceplate down and went back to the fight.

* * *

 **I'm sorry. Do you all hate me now? There's another chapter still to come.**


	4. Chapter 4

**.**

 **I really, really hope this doesn't happen**

"Go. Come on." Rogers threw a door open, Bucky and Wilson bolted through it ahead of him, shielding their heads. Rogers followed them and kicked the door shut behind him, it wouldn't buy them much time, just keep them out of line of sight for a moment. "Go. Run." He panted.

"Where are we going?" Wilson called over his shoulder.

"Away." They were in full retreat. Barton was dead, he'd lost track of Lang, Carter was injured, she should be able to slip away and be ignored. That wasn't an option for them. He and Bucky were the ones they really wanted.

He'd never been in a fight and lost this badly: one dead, one MIA, one incapacitated, everyone bleeding. Every movement hurt somehow. There was a great raw burn on one of his legs from Stark's repulsors, he was covered in gashes and scrapes, so was Bucky. They'd leave a blood trail. They'd be followed wherever they ran, but they could not stand and fight any longer. They had no answer to Vision, they'd lost their sniper and their surprise attack had just vanished. They could only run or surrender, and there was no way Bucky could surrender to them. They'd destroy him; lock him up, bring him back under programming… Bucky's only hope was to evade them, but Stark and Vision could both fly. In an open fight, Bucky wouldn't last long against either one of them. He needed another option.

They broke back out of the building on to a half-covered courtyard. All three of them stopped, looking around.

"Storm drain." Rogers pointed, there was one in the corner, just behind the parked car. "We get below, we eliminate the flight advantage, go by stealth." Wilson nodded. He was guarding his side. He'd taken a hard hit there from Stark. Bucky crouched and pulled the cover off, he had one arm that wasn't bleeding at least.

"Looks passable." He said.

"We foxholing or getting away?" Wilson asked.

"Getting away. Go. I'll be on your six. Go." Rogers said. Wilson nodded, sat down at the edge and dropped.

"Ten feet." He called up. "If that." Bucky looked hard at Rogers.

"Buck, go. I'll follow." He went. Rogers stashed his shield on his back and heard the familiar burn of Stark's repulsors above him. They'd been found. He had seconds before he was seen and they knew where they'd gone. Maybe that was all he needed.

Rogers kicked the drain cover back in to place and pulled the car two feet backwards over it, fortunately the handbrake was clapped out. If they couldn't see the drain, hopefully they wouldn't think to send men down it for a while. He'd just straightened and started to look for another way to run when the roof shattered above him. Plastic shards fell like little knives, there was shouting everywhere.

"Put your hands above your head! Don't move!" Spec ops, coming from two places, and Stark from above. This would be like shooting fish in a barrel if he tried to fight. Too many sides, not enough cover, and Stark and Vision coming out of the sky. He surrendered or he died. Rogers did the unimaginable. He raised both hands above his head.

"Get on your knees!" He did, grimacing in pain as the movement pulled at the burn.

"Nice and slow now, take off your helmet." Again, he did as he was told, spitting blood. His nose was bleeding, so was a cut on his cheek.

"There's no need for this." Stark said, landing six feet in front of him. Rogers didn't look up. He closed his eyes. He was tired. He was so tired. He didn't want to fight any more. "You can put the guns down, we're not going to get any tricks. Cap?" Stark sounded about as tired as Rogers felt. Rogers ignored him. "Cap? Where's the Soldier?" Again, Rogers ignored him. They didn't know. They hadn't noticed the drain. Bucky had got away, and Wilson was with him. They might actually stand a chance.

Tony sighed heavily and pulled his faceplate up. He glanced over his shoulder at Vision. "Captain, he's dangerous. I know he's your friend, but if he's left to run around on his own, people will get killed." The Captain completely ignored him. He was doing the Stoic Warrior thing. Surely he had to realise it was over. "Cap, come on. Please. Don't draw this out. Nobody else needs to die." He still didn't look up.

"The prisoner is too powerful to safely contain." Ross's voice sounded in Tony's ear, out of Rogers's hearing. Tony tensed, drew breath to contradict the General, Rogers might be strong but he was no match for Vision, or an Iron Man suit, but before he could "Operative six, take the shot."

"No!" Tony roared, but his voice was lost under the gunshot. The Captain convulsed once and fell face down, a hole torn in the back of his head, red pooling in to the white and sticking to the hair around the hole. He'd surrendered. He'd been kneeling down with his hands up. He'd surrendered. Tony felt the colour drain out of his face, he was going to be sick. He was dead. He'd surrendered and they'd killed him. He was dead.

"Who did that?" Tony asked the line of masked spec ops, swallowing hard. "Which one of you is operative six?"

* * *

 **I'm sorry. This is very nearly the worst outcome I could imagine, as I'm sure you've realised it's based on the comics. I really hope that this isn't what we see over the next few days.**

 **Thanks to my beta, CaptainArwenPond221B, to my Grandmother for inspiring me to write and to God for creating the world and everything in it. Solo Dei Gloria.**


End file.
